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The Ghost Soldiers: Poems
by James Tate

The Ghost Soldiers: Poems Cover

Powells.com Staff Pick

Tate, the master of the contemporary prose poem, cranks up the tension in his newest bunch of poems simply by letting his odd array of characters go back and forth with their skewed and hilarious conversations. These dialogue-heavy wonders are dense with hilarious accidents, bittersweet bickerings, melancholy lust, and disastrous miscommunications. We, the readers, are the lucky ones, eavesdropping from afar, in the warm weather of our collectively blown minds.
Recommended by Kevin, Powells.com

Intriguing. The most intense of Tate's writings, with political and environmental themes. Such wonderful, imaginative writing.
Recommended by Adrienne, Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Tate returns with his fifteenth book of poetry, an exciting new collection that offers nearly one hundred fresh and thought-provoking pieces that embody Tate's trademark style and voice: his accessibility, his dark humor, and his exquisite sense of the absurd.

Tate's work is stark—he writes in clear, everyday language—yet his seemingly simple and macabre stories are layered with broad and trenchant meaning. His characters are often lost or confused, his settings bizarre, his scenarios brilliantly surreal. Opaque, inscrutable people float through a dreamlike world where nothing is as it seems. The Ghost Soldiers offers resounding proof, once again, that Tate stands alone in American poetry.

Review:

"Over the past several books, the prolific Pulitzer Prize winner Tate (Return to the City of White Donkeys) has been inching toward the invention of a new kind of American poem, a hybrid of prose poetry (though he's got loose, almost arbitrary line breaks), fable, surrealism and a sort of outsider folk poetry. These chatty, narrative works humorously treat all kinds of subjects, from civil unrest (' 'There are soldiers everywhere. Its' hard/ to tell which side they're on,' I said. 'They're against us./ Everyone's against us. Isn't that what you believe'') to altruism ('I said I didn't want any help from anyone, but, then,/ when no one offered to help, I was really hurt') and wildcats ('I loved his quick, agile movements, never doubting himself,/ as most of us do). A dark undercurrent runs beneath them all, and war and politics — which tend to confuse the poems' speakers — are frequent subjects. It's rare that a poet so far into his career — this is Tate's 15th collection — comes up with something new; quietly, Tate has found a fresh way of telling some of America's stories." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
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About the Author

James Tate was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1943. He is the author of fifteen books of poetry, including Shroud of the Gnome; Worshipful Company of Fletchers, which won the National Book Award in 1994; Selected Poems, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the William Carlos Williams Award in 1991; Distance from Loved Ones; Reckoner; Constant Defender; Riven Doggeries; Viper Jazz; Absences; Hints to Pilgrims; The Oblivion Ha-Ha; and The Lost Pilot, which was selected by Dudley Fitts for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. In addition to his poetry, Tate has also published two books of prose, Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee and The Route as Briefed, and edited The Best American Poetry 1997. His honors include a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Poetry, the Tanning Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780061436949
Subtitle:
Poems
Author:
Tate, James
Author:
by James Tate
Author:
by James Tate
Publisher:
Ecco
Subject:
General
Subject:
American - General
Subject:
General Poetry
Publication Date:
April 2008
Binding:
Hardcover
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
217
Dimensions:
9.12x6.32x.93 in. 1.05 lbs.
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